Emerging Water Pollutants from Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PCPs) are chemically modified products mostly used for beauty, cleaning, or health, such as disinfectants, fragrances, insect repellents, ultraviolet (UV) filters, and others. Due to the contamination caused by these chemically amended PCPs, water pollution has appeared as a hazardous condition for the water treatment and supply sector. A recent concern is that when these chemical compounds combine with water, they act as water pollutants and harm aquatic lives and the survival of human lives. Nowadays, the concern of water pollution by these chemicals is confined to water treatment complexities this contamination is leaving adverse effects on the environment. Most of these water pollutants borne by sewage effluents through wastewater plants develop because of the insufficient removal from treatment plants. Therefore, the emerging water pollutants caused by PCPs are responsible for environmental pollution. Hence, this chapter emphasized the state-of-the-art global application of PCPs, the mechanism of water pollution by PCPs, possible biohazards, and negative impacts on the environment. Besides that, various types of PCPs, along with the most applied chemical compounds in PCPs, have been discussed in this chapter. To minimize the contamination, suitable removal methods to enhance the removal efficacy have been discussed. The chapter also presents a future perspective for reducing the PCP contamination of surface water with cutting-edge technologies and wastewater treatment.

Keywords: Water pollutants, Pharmaceutical products, Personal care products, Surface water, Wastewater treatment technologies.